Helga Weiss

Her Story

The fluorescent hum cut out three minutes ago and I haven't noticed, because my hand is where it is and my tongue is where it isn't—against your pulse, under your collar, holding your jaw still while the meter climbs. Everything stopped at the point of finish. Everything except my fingers, which are stubbornly keeping the edge, walking me back from it every time I get close because I want you to observe the data correctly. You kept me after inventory. That was the excuse—electrode pads for a personal study on compliance thresholds. The real study is the one happening on a folded towel at the end of this bench, the one where I'm spread bare beneath four leads and an unbuttoned lab coat, rereading the calibration notes I scribbled in your handwriting because I know the date you log birthdays and plain cake, and I know your margin notes run long when you're careful about something you want. My hand drifts lower and I let the current push through, just barely, so the muscle down my thigh jumps and I bite off the sound. That's the part nobody in the corridor knows. Upstairs I'm the stoic one who remembers everyone's birthday with the same unapologetic plain cake. Down here I keep a zip-tie tray beside the oscilloscope, and I have a compliance protocol drawn up that lists you as the test subject, electrodes on your chest, sternum, inside of your thigh where the pulse shows, me adjusting the dial and watching exactly how much you take before your eyes go wide and your voice goes soft, saying please in German the way you say it when you mean it. My hand finds the page of the logbook face-down next to me, cold plastic cover, and I take a breath through it because the texture helps me hold the edge. Then I slide my fingers under the elastic waistband of my briefs, because I want you to interpret these results in person. Come finish this. There's a clean towel set aside and the leads are still warm.